bwc352

Aaron, I notice that the event type on the 29th is listed as "British". What's the difference between British and Traditional? I know that 3D puts on an English trials and I was told that it meant that all classes ride the same sections. Is British the same thing? Thanks, Brian

So, how did the SWM trial turn out? What was the final count of the herd of SWMs? The weather was perfect. I wish I could have made it. Brian

Absolutely not too current. I had him listed in my original post, but it was hard to keep track of who was mentioned and who wasn't after a while. Maybe some day when I've got some time, I'll put together a list with all the names mentioned. Maybe I'll also include what they are known for, since I have to admit that I didn't know a lot of the names that were listed.

Hi Steve, I'm looking forward to you joining us. So far, every event and nearly every practice has been in mud and/or snow. Strange weather. After the next two events, we'll have a Sunday off. You'll have to join us for some practice on our sections. And I agree with you about Debbie Evans! I bought Lane's book and one of the surprise extra benefits were the great pictures of Debbie! And that was a great quote from Gary Bailey that Motofire posted. I suspect that Bailey is right. But I'm biased. It also makes me think that Gary Bailey might have entered a few events himself. It would be interesting to see if that's the case. While following up on some of the leads posted here, I also found a cool picture of Jeff Ward on a trials bike when he was a kid. If anyone's interested in seeing, you can check it out (scroll down to the bottom of the article to see it) at the following site: http://www.racerxill.com/articles/detail/1...acerhead-3.aspx Brian

Thanks for all your responses. I hope they keep on rolling in. I'm still absorbing it all and am taking the time to track down more information about the riders that are making this list. I'm learning a lot and am enjoying it. Earlier today I found an interesting article written by Ricky Johnson about Jean-Michel Bayle. I found it mainly interesting because he compared JMB's riding style to another MXer who is on this list: Brian Myerscough. I suspect that Ricky did not know that both JMB and Brian Myerscough both had trials experience, but he noted that their styles were similar to each other: "JMB on a motorcycle was one of the most impressive riders I've ever seen. I didn't think he was the most attractive and stylish rider, but his methods were very effective. The way JMB moves around on the bike reminds me of Brian Myerscough (an American rider of the 70's and 80's). Maybe it looked a little unorthodox, but if you took time to study what he did on the bike, then you will see it had a purpose." I find it interesting to think about the specific advantages that trials gives you in other avenues of motorcycle competition. Ricky mentioned how JMB would ride the berms differently and find ways to not lose momentum. I rode a little bit of motocross and hare scrambles before I got into trials. I am utterly convinced that my experience in trials would make me better at both MX and hare scrambles if I were to ever return, and can think of quite a few areas and reasons why that would likely be so. The only problem is that I love trials way too much to give much thought to actually returning to those other avenues! Anyway, I really enjoying going through all the responses. Thanks for posting them, and I hope more names are added. If anyone's interesting the in the whole article Ricky wrote about JMB, the following link should take you there: http://www.supercross.com/rjsays.php?id=23 Brian

While I was reading through my old books on trials, I came across the name of "Jacky Ickx" as one of the top world class trials riders in 1964 and 1965 (8th and 4th respectively in the 1964 and 1965 Henri Goutars Challenge). I wondered if it was the same Jacky Ickx that I watched on TV in Formula 1 and Lemans when I was a kid. A quick check of the web confirmed that it was indeed the same Jacky Ickx. So, I added yet one more name to my mental list of people in other avenues of motor sports who had at one point been involved in observed trials. Off the top of my head, the list now includes Jacky Ickx, Roger DeCoster, Jeff Ward, Juha Salminen, David Knight, and Brian Myerscough. Pretty darned impressive in my opinion. Plus, I vaguely recall reading that the list of people who have cross trained by riding a trials bike includes Ricky Carmichael and Damon Bradshaw. And didn't Jeff Smith start out in trials? I'm interested in hearing what other well known people from other avenues of motosports (or anywhere else for that matter) had or have an involvement in trials. I wonder who else should be on this list?

Hi Aaron, I'll send you a pm with Scott's contact info. Brian

Hi mil, Check out page 27 of the following top end maintenance manual from Sherco for one possible way of doing it (be patient as the manual is something like 1.5 megs and may take a little while to load): http://www.sherco.com/downloads/wayne/Sher...ce%20Manual.pdf Good luck, Brian

Just finished another one. It's Chris Florin riding over a bunch of concrete barriers. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5785966623493716350

I agree. It was a great venue. Hopefully, it comes back. With the huge snowstorm that hit us last week, I got sidetracked by shoveling snow! So it's taking me a while to get around to uploading the videos. But here's another one from Motorama. It's Travis Fox riding over a kind of 'wheel of fortune' contraption: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3...&pr=goog-sl

Given that this weekend is the weekend of Motorama (in Pennsylvania), and they aren't having the motorcycle trials this year , I figured maybe I'd upload some video of Motorama from years past. If I get some time maybe I'll upload some more. This particular video is of Chris Florin competing in Motorama in February of 2005: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2837863957907507407

Here are working links to the band that Charlie is playing in: http://www.crawlersblues.com/ http://www.myspace.com/thelimekilncrawlers They sound GREAT! I personally like "Full Time Lover" at the myspace site the best. Charlie has a section named in his honor because he drowned a bike in the section's stream in sub-freezing weather. We were displaying our usual lack of judgment and decided to practice one of our stream sections even though the temperature had dropped down into the 20s (I guess that's something like negative 3 or 4 centigrade). Stupid, stupid, stupid. Anyway, in one part of the creek, you had to follow a relatively tight line because a small waterfall had dug some pretty deep holes into certain parts of the creek bed. If you missed the line, you were in trouble. Charlie missed the line. We wondered how deep the hole was. Charlie found out. It was deeper than his bike. That meant that it wasn't your usual water-in-the airbox type of drowning. It was a take-the-sparkplug-out-and-kick-the-water-out-of-the-cylinder type of drowning. Which means we spent a pretty long time working on the bike in the freezing cold -- while wet. And truth be told, I was actually the wetest, because I had flipped over the bars earlier on and had landed upside down in the creek with the bike on top of me. But since he was the one with the dead bike, he got the honor of having the section named after him. Damn we can be dumb.

Charlie, Pretty d**ned good!! The guitar work on Full Time Lover is at least the equivalent of an 6 foot splatter! Flat out excellent! But if you get time for your other hobby again, drop me a line. We'll even steer clear of that creek that now forever bears your name. Brian

Hey Brian, Those old Cotas are doing great. We entered them in the MAVT (Mid Atlantic Vintage Trials) series, and with the exception of Farrandsville, they did great. I cooked the engine on mine at Farrandsville. Farrandsville (the Durty Dabbers' event) has a lot of hill climbing and between the heat (it was in the 90s) and my weight, the bike basically said 'I think it's time to die'. But it literally waited until I got to the scorer's table before it completely froze up. Good bike! This year I'll probably use either the 349 or a TY250 for Farrandsville. Charlie was going to try to get up to ride with us, but wasn't able to. If you're ever up north visiting the family when an MAVT event is going on, you should stop on by. Good to hear from you, Brian

The last I heard, Charlie Chitlin's doing fine. Last year was a different story. He mowed a little more than just his lawn, and was out of commission for awhile:

I'm not sure that nsaqam's following quote about old farts not being able to draw new people to the sport is accurate. Nsaqam: "Old guys, even extremely talented old guys, aren't gonna draw a single outsider into this sport." At the age of 48, I decided to try out trials and bought a trials bike (a Sherco 290). Before I did so, there were only 4 trials riders I know of that lived in my area, and 3 of them rarely rode -- even the 4th probably only rode a couple of times a year. It turned out that I love the sport much more than I had even hoped I would have, and I suspect that my resulting enthusiasm is at least in some small way responsible for helping to ignite an increase in our local trials-riding numbers. In the past year or so, 5 more people in the area have purchased trials bikes and have started to ride. On top of that, the other original 4 riders all ride more frequently than they used to. I'm no expert in this matter, but based on my first hand experience, enthusiasm while practicing in the woods can be a VERY effective way of introducing new people to the sport. And this is from an old guy who is NOT extremely talented! Just my two cents on that one particular part of your post.

I added some of that content quite some time ago. The way Wikipedia works, anyone can edit the content. If I remember correctly, you just click on the edit button and start adding content. It's kind of like an ongoing work in progress with everyone having the ability to put in their two cents.

A lot of people felt that it was the model cars that made the air pollution so unbearable. Last year (spring of 2005) was my first year, and I thought it was bad. I kept trying to leave the arena to occassionally get some decent air, and still got a nasty headache. This year was surprisingly good. The improvement in the air quality might be because they moved the radio controlled cars elsewhere. This also turned over more room to the trials riders. But judging from this year, I'd say that the fumes are no longer bad enough to keep you away. So, hope to see you next year Steve. Maybe I'll even bring your old Cota!

I think that Sam (two or three posts up) might have listed the results of the bicycle trials, not the motorcycle trials. The bicycle and unicycle guys were great however. The motorcycle trials were terrific. I unfortunately don't have the results, except for my class. The overall event is amazing, with arenacross races right next door to motorcycle trials right next door to quarter midget races right next door to car shows, etc., etc. I agree with Lane "Mich Lin" Leavitt (a previous post in this thread) and think that they should consider making this our national indoor championship.

Thanks VintageCota and Brian. For the 200, it was my first oil change (I just got the bike) and I added 900 (thanks to you guys). As for the 349, I double-checked my manual and it really did say 300 and 300 in my particular manual. Strange. Thanks for the feedback. The more information that I can gather, the better.

The service advisory for the 200 that increased the recommended gearbox oil from 600cc to 900cc got me thinking. Was there a similar increase in the recommended oil for the 349 gearbox? My 349 manual says 300cc for the clutch and 300cc for the gearbox. Were these suggested amounts for the 349 later increased? Or are they still correct?

Thanks VintageCota. I'll be sure to increase the oil to 900cc. BTW, I really enjoyed another posting of yours where you gave your ratings of the various Montesas of that era. Thanks.

VintageCota, So, that means that I should be putting in 900cc instead of 600cc? That seems like a HUGE change. Do you know what prompted them to revise the suggested amount of oil? Thanks.

The xerox copy that I've seen of the apparent manual for the 200 indicates that it takes 600cc (or 20.25 oz.) of 10w30.

All the digital cameras I see anymore look excellent. I think the most important, and frequently overlooked, items anymore are the batteries and the storage medium. I try to only get electronic gizmos that have rechargeable aa or aaa batteries, and try to get all of the gizmos to use the same storage medium -- which for me happens to secure digital. By doing that, my gps, mp3 players, digital cameras all use the same batteries and storage mediums which dramatically simplifies things and allows me to almost always have extra batteries or memory cards. If, for example, I really need a couple more shots and have used up my card and/or batteries, I can just slip out the card or batteries from my gps. And I don't need to have different chargers and card readers all over the place -- and in an emergency can always just get a pack of aa or aaa batteries. I happened to get a Kodak easyshare by the way, which I am quite pleased with.